Author: Justin Durand

Recording maiden names in genealogy

Recording maiden names in genealogy

by Justin Durand ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

The so-called “genealogy standard” is to use birth names for everyone, even in cultures where it doesn’t make sense.

The “encylopedic standard” makes more sense. As a mental shorthand, I think of it as “best known as”. For example:

Cokayne [formerly Adams], George Edward (1825–1911), genealogist, born at 64 Russell Square, London, on 29 April 1825, was the fourth son and youngest child (in a family of eight) of William Adams (1772–1851), LLD, of Thorpe, Surrey, advocate in Doctors’ Commons, and his wife, the Hon. Mary Anne (d. 1873), daughter of William Cockayne and niece and coheir of Borlase Cockayne, sixth and last Viscount Cullen. Dictionary of National Biography

Another:

William Jefferson “Bill” Clinton (b. William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946, in Hope, AR) was the 42nd president of the United States. He served from 1993 to 2001. Ballotpedia.org

We could go on and on.

Maiden names and aliases

Maiden names and aliases

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“In England, as well as in France and other continental nations, down to the seventeenth century, married women and widows not infrequently retained their maiden names, generally, however, with an alias ; and in certain parts of Scotland and Wales, such persons still sign by their maiden name in legal documents, even though described in them by the surnames of their lords. In Scottish deeds, they are almost always described by both the maiden and the marital surname ; a course which ought invariably to be followed, as suggested by Mr. Hubback, where they do not conform to the practice adopted in England of signing by the husband’s name.”

George Seton, The Law and Practice of Heraldry in Scotland (Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1863), 392-93 (citing Evidence of Succession, 455).

Toba Eruption

Toba Eruption

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I don’t follow closely, but one of the truisms of human genetics has been the impact of the Toba Eruption.

DNA studies seem to show modern humans are descended from a smaller than expected number of people. We seem to have lost some of the genetic diversity we would be expected to have.

One possible explanation is that there was a point in human history, maybe about 50 thousand to 100 thousand years ago, when the number of humans dropped dramatically. The cause of the drop was perhaps the eruption of the Toba Supervolcano about 75 thousand years ago. Fun, fun.

But no. Now they’re thinking maybe not.

I’m sad to lose such an interesting theory, but it is what it is.

Rachel (Roberson) Horne

Rachel (Roberson) Horne

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Rachel Roberson has consumed a lot of my genealogical research time. She is supposed to have been Indian, or perhaps part Indian. I’ve wanted to find some answers but now years of research have given me so much information it seems almost impossible to say anything helpful.

She was Rachel (Roberson) Horne (1847-1944), my grandmother’s grandmother. More exactly, my father’s mother’s father’s mother. Traditions in different branches of the family tell me she smoked a corncob pipe, and she taught beading and basket weaving to her daughters and granddaughters. Rachel’s sympathies were with the South during the Civil War (“She was one of the onriest Rebels there was”).

My genealogy correspondents seem to be aware William Horne’s wife was Indian, but none of them have had any further information except to attribute his nomadic life and extreme poverty to her influence.

The 1850 and 1860 censuses show Rachel as the daughter of Rufus and Elizabeth (Lomax) Roberson. She is said to have had a brother Thomas Skidmore Roberson, as well as an unnamed sister who married a Lakota man. That marriage is implied to have been the origin of the connection between our family and the family of Pete Catches.

There is a curious tradition that Rachel was sold by her parents. It’s not clear whether she is supposed to have been sold to the Robersons by her Indian parents, or she is supposed to have been sold by the Robersons to Wiliam Horne as a wife.

Rachel is shown on censuses as the only child of Rufus and Elizabeth Roberson. This might support the tradition she was adopted but DNA triangulation seems to show she was probably their biological daughter. Her descendants have autosomal matches with descendants of Rufus Roberson’s brothers Benjamin and Craig.

I’ve found no evidence of the brother or sister Rachel is said to have had, except a magazine clipping of a picture of a Lakota boy in traditional dress on which my father wrote, “This is the grandson of Rachel Horn’s sister.” The clipping seems to be from a 1960s or 70s magazine such as Life or Look. I’m relatively certain the boy pictured is Pete Catches, Jr.

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Were They Pawnee?

Were They Pawnee?

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According to a tradition current among some of my cousins, my great great grandmother Rachel (Roberson) Horne (1847-1944) was Pawnee. I don’t think so. Nothing else points in that direction.

I asked my grandmother Evelyn (Horn) Miller one year at Powwow about our Indian ancestry. She said she had always assumed they were Pawnee. A few years later she told her daughter Fern she had lately changed her mind. She now believed they were Cherokee because they owned slaves, which is something the Cherokees did.

I think the idea Rachel was Pawnee was probably just an assumption based on geography. Rachel’s parents lived in Atchison County, Missouri, just across the Missouri River from the Nemaha Half Breed Reservation (established 1830, dissolved 1860), as well as from land ceded by the Pawnee in 1833. Rachel’s family settled in this area in 1839.

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